Plans to hand the government’s apprenticeships quango new powers over technical qualifications are a “retrograde step” and introduce a conflict of interest, awarding bodies have warned.

The Federation of Awarding Bodies has sought legal advice over the Skills Bill ahead of its second reading in the House of Lords tomorrow.

A key proposal in the Bill is to give the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education the ultimate sign-off power for the approval and regulation of technical qualifications in future.

In a position statement, seen by FE Week, the FAB says that while this may look like an “obvious extension” of remit, it “actually sets the scene for a muddled and cumbersome two-tier system of qualifications regulation emerging”.

The federation is concerned the move would reverse the “gains” of independent regulation that parliament intended in 2009 when it set up Ofqual.

Unlike Ofqual, the institute is a non-departmental public body directly accountable to ministers, not parliament.

FAB explains that Ofqual was created following a period of “significant scandals and instability” in the regulation of qualifications which resulted in the then Qualifications and Curriculum Authority being abolished.

It warns that the government is in danger of repeating the “mistakes of history by handing back day-to-day political control of technical qualification regulation directly to ministers via the institute”.

“We believe this to be a retrograde step as it will not secure strong public confidence in these important qualifications in future,” the statement says.

It goes on to claim that this part of the Skills Bill, in its current form, fails to meet “five Cs”: competence, coherence, competition, complexity and cost.

One of the biggest concerns for FAB is that the legislation would introduce a “material conflict of interest”, since the institute will be both a state awarding/accreditation body for technical qualifications (e.g. T Levels) as well as a regulator deciding which technical qualifications can be granted regulatory approval for public funding purposes.

“In an unprecedented move, this turns the institute into both a market participant in qualifications (by developing, accrediting and certificating its own technical qualifications) and a market regulator of technical qualifications, deciding which qualifications that they do not own can operate in the marketplace in future,” the briefing note said.

“We don’t have a problem with the institute being either a market participant or a market regulator, but we do not believe it is in the national interest to allow it to operate with both these functions in hand.”

Writing for FE Week, FAB chief executive Tom Bewick said the new power proposed for the institute “is the biggest flaw in the proposed legislation”.

“Without offering any real evidence of how outcomes will be better, a Conservative government has set upon a course to nationalise technical education.”

In response to the concerns, a DfE spokesperson said: “Now more than ever, the role of employers in the skills system is critical to our economic recovery and growth.

“The Bill will give the institute responsibility for ensuring that employers’ views are at the heart of the system, whilst Ofqual will continue to regulate and maintain education standards. We believe that both organisations (working together with awarding organisations) have a vital role to play to ensure the quality of technical qualifications.”

The Skills Bill does admit that by extending the institute’s approval powers, the “risks of duplication and inconsistency” in the qualifications market “are increased”.

To combat this, the institute will be required to cooperate with Ofqual to create a “single approval gateway” for technical qualifications.

The next FE commissioner and the author of the landmark post-18 education review are among those receiving gongs in this year’s Queen’s birthday honours list.

Included in the awards for almost 20 people from the FE and skills sector is a knighthood for Philip Augar and a CBE for Chichester College Group principal Shelagh Legrave.

Augar, a former banker, was appointed in 2018 to lead the ‘Review of Post-18 Education and Funding’ which reported in 2019 and has since had many of its recommendations taken forward such as a lifelong loan entitlement and handing Ofsted the power to inspect all apprenticeships.

Augar, the list explains, is being recognised for services to higher and further education policy and he said he had been “privileged to chair an outstanding panel” with support from “dedicated” officials.

“This honour reflects their efforts and I hope that the report we produced will remain of value to everyone involved in the sector.”

There is also a damehood for the scourge of the Department for Education, Commons Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier.

Hillier called it a “huge honour,” but: “Holding the government to account is a joint endeavour and I can’t do my job without the support of the committee.”

Chichester College Group principal Shelagh Legrave, who is due to become the new FE Commissioner in October, has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

The Ofsted grade one college leader called it an “unexpected honour” and felt especially privileged after already being made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2015.

“I absolutely love my job and to be recognised for doing something I love is extraordinary.

“I can’t quite put into words how it feels. I am simply thrilled.”

Also being made CBEs are outgoing Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education chair Antony Jenkins and London South East Colleges leader Sam Parrett

Parrett, who has led the group since it was created in 2016 after running Bromley College since 2010, said she was “overwhelmed” to be recognised, and it had come as a “complete surprise” for which she was “incredibly grateful”.

The gong “reflects the huge amount of work and dedication many people have put in over the past few years,” she said, after having received an OBE in 2017.

Jenkins, a former Barclays group chief executive who is leaving the role next month after starting out as IfATE’s shadow chair in 2016 before it officially launched the following year, said he is “delighted and humbled by this recognition,” and was “proud of the work we have done together”.

South and City College Birmingham principal Mike Hopkins, East Coast College principal Stuart Rimmer, and Workpays chief executive Helen Richardson have been made Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Rimmer, who became the college’s first principal in 2017 after a merger between Great Yarmouth College, Lowestoft College and Lowestoft Sixth Form, called it a “great honour,” but said: “Leading a college is a privilege and very much a team effort.

“I am fortunate to work with some amazing staff who positively impact our students every day.”

“Humbled and honoured,” was how Hopkins described his reaction, “as I have never sought any such personal recognition, I have simply done the best I can throughout my career”.

He was born and educated in the city, and took over what was then South Birmingham College in 2007, before it consumed City College and Bournville College.

He credited the MBE to his staff, but he said his college, the largest in its region, had “still a lot to do, especially with the aftermath of the pandemic”.

Richardson was honoured for services to young people, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, after her provider delivered laptops and WiFi access for its learners, while also hand delivering work to their homes.

“I was really surprised to receive the honour and clearly very excited,” she said.

“The whole team has worked even harder than usual to continue to deliver to young people during Covid.”

See the full list of honours recipients below (click to expand):

Another two university technical colleges are being absorbed into multi-academy trusts and expanding their age ranges after facing possible financial ruin amid recruitment struggles.

A financial notice to improve issued last month to Health Futures UTC instructed it to join a “strong” MAT by September after the government became concerned about its “weak financial position and management”.

Meanwhile, Greater Peterborough UTC (GPUTC) announced this week it will join Cambridge Meridian Academies Trust in June and will extend its starting age to 11 from September.

Health Futures, which opened in 2015, has remained tight-lipped about which MAT it will join, but West Midlands-based Shireland Collegiate Multi Academy Trust confirmed it had held “exploratory talks” with the West Bromwich-based UTC without having discussed anything formally.

Another candidate is the trust run by its lead partner, the University of Wolverhampton. The university declined to comment on which MAT the UTC will join.

 

UTC owed ESFA almost half a million pounds

Both UTCs have faced problems recruiting enough students to meet capacity, with the latest government statistics showing Health Futures has 160 students against a capacity of 600, while GPUTC has 224 against 500.

The 2020 accounts for Health Futures UTC warns “low student numbers” are its principal risk, after the college, which specialises in healthcare and science for 14- to 19-yearolds, ended the financial year with a loss of £593,555.

The Ofsted grade three college also owed the Education and Skills Funding Agency £458,845 and its accounts say it is depending on the agency not asking for that cash back if it is to have enough money to meet its liabilities over the next year.

It is also receiving “additional financial support” from the agency.

Were the government to demand its money back and discontinue that support, this would cast “significant doubt” on the college’s ability to continue as a going concern, the accounts say.

Board member Michelle Shaw, director of education for the university, said Health Futures joining a MAT will “help ensure its ongoing viability”.

She said the college had complied with all the demands of the notice to improve, which included submitting certain financial information, boosting the number of board members and asking the ESFA for permission to make certain transactions.

The additional support had been provided, she explained, “to ensure that operating costs can be met during this time of low student numbers. The student number situation will be remedied once the UTC has joined the new MAT.”

GPUTC’s financial statements for 2019/20 reveal that, in addition to having generated a “significant” deficit, the ESFA was also clawing back £234,730 after the college did not recruit enough students for the 2019/20 academic year.

They add that the trustees consider that the UTC will “not have sufficient resources to continue for the foreseeable future”.

Principal David Bisley said the UTC had “doubled the number of students on the roll over the past three years.

“With the support of Cambridge Meridian Academies Trust, our superb offer to students and the strong school community we have developed, we are confident we will reach our target of being fully subscribed by the 2022/23 academic year.”

 

Joining multi-academy trusts has become common for UTCs

FE Week reported in March 2020 the grade three college, which opened in 2016, had dropped its age range from 14-19 to 13, as part of a growing trend in UTCs admitting broader age ranges to improve their enrolment.

Simon Connell, chief executive of the UTC licensing body the Baker-Dearing Trust, previously told this newspaper changing entry age could be a “pragmatic solution” for colleges with low rolls which need to up their capacity “significantly”.

Joining an MAT has also become a common option for struggling UTCs in recent years. It is a move favoured by ministers and, despite initially resisting it, the Baker Dearing Trust began to encourage the process in 2019 to enable the colleges to survive.

When Health Futures’ and GPUTC’s moves go ahead, 28 of the 48 currently open UTCs (58 per cent) will be run by MATs.

Schools system minister Baroness Berridge told the Commons education select committee in April the government hoped to have a “strong sustainable group of UTCs” by the autumn, and to have “worked through any of the issues that are remaining”.

Training providers have been left livid and refusing to sign contracts after the Department for Education revealed their researchers would randomly reject half of all eligible bootcamp applicants.

“Ludicrous” is how one described the delivery requirement, first revealed in a DfE presentation (see image) to the successful bidders to the £18 million digital, technical and construction skills bootcamp tender.

Announced by the prime minister Boris Johnson in September 2020, skills bootcamps are typically three-month courses at level 3 and above and form part of a number of new flagship adult education policies.

During the presentation, the DfE explained the planned randomised control trial (RCT) meant they would need to recruit twice as many candidates and then submit all their details to the DfE.

A research contractor to the DfE, the Institute for Employment Studies, would then take at least four weeks to “randomly select candidates for you from your qualifying candidates list and inform you of who is receiving training and who is in the control group”.

Several providers voiced similar ethical concerns about the DfE researchers spending weeks to randomly separate the unemployed applicants into this “treatment group” and a “control group”.

The lucky “treatment group” would benefit from the training, whilst the “control group” would be refused access for at least a year so that they could be monitored and compared.

One training provider described it as being “like half the patients given a trial drug and rest given a placebo”.

The DfE presentation spelt out that they must “not offer bootcamp training to any candidates in the control group for at least a year after they have been assigned to the control group, even if they ask/get referred again”.

The DfE also told providers not to speak to the media and that the research findings would be shared with the Treasury to “help determine if further bootcamps will be funded”.

FE Week has spoken to many of the successful providers that were present during the DfE briefing, all of whom have refused to sign the contract after the “goalposts had been moved”.

“It would be a challenge in the time available to hit our contact target, let alone double it,” said one.

Another objected to the “bureaucracy” of having to wait to be told who they can enrol, “by which time, they may no longer be interested”.

And they all expressed concern about the unfunded costs of recruiting twice as many applicants, only for the DfE to then reject half that would become “guinea pigs” for research purposes.

With the flagship programme in jeopardy before launching and the results of a second £18 million bootcamp tender facing ongoing delays, the DfE has now been forced to revisit the RCT requirements.

The DfE told FE Week that conversations were ongoing with the 18 bootcamp providers and a meeting had been arranged for next Tuesday to try to break the deadlock.

A spokesperson said: “We are continuing to engage with suppliers on the proposed evaluation approaches. Due to ongoing contract discussions, this is commercially sensitive, so it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

Winning bidders also voiced ethical concerns where there were no alternative courses available for the rejected applicants, to which the DfE said they would be “signposted to information on other provision”.

On seeing the RCT plan, Fiona Aldridge, director for policy and research at the Learning and Work Institute, told FE Week this research technique in post-16 education was “extremely rare”.

“It’s important that we have a strong evidence base for future investment decisions in education. I welcome the use of RCTs in assessing the effectiveness of bootcamps.

“There is, however, a set of ethical issues that need to be thought through. In particular, decisions about who gets to take part should be communicated in a timely way that doesn’t discourage potential learners from engaging in wider opportunities.”

The DfE refused to comment on, or defend, the ethics of the research approach.

Government guidance on randomised controlled trials, published by Public Health England, states that if there is an “existing intervention that works, it would be unethical not to give it to participants”.

Two governors have resigned and union tension has flared at one of England’s largest college groups after it announced plans to invest in an unconventional tech venture.

Capital City College Group (CCCG) is spending half a million pounds kitting out its currently empty Regent’s Park campus for a course run with a new firm called 01 Founders, which involves a “sink or swim” admissions model and no teachers.

FE Week understands the true cost runs into the millions when accounting for the exclusive use of the campus in central London, which at one stage was being considered for sale.

The college revealed that a split within the board led to two resignations, one of which was the Association of Colleges’ area director for the Midlands Shane Chowen.

After being approached by FE Week, Chowen said he “didn’t feel this was the right thing for the group. It does not look to me like it will have an impact on the communities I believe the college should be focusing on.”

Fellow governor Sarah Ebanja has decided not to seek another term on CCCG’s board over the decision on the course, FE Week understands.

Applicants will have to ‘sink or swim’ to make it onto the course

The news comes as the college plans to make lecturers redundant in other parts of its group.

The coding course is free for learners to take and offers participants a guaranteed job after they graduate. Learners can be of any age, have no academic qualifications and will be taught through software from coding platform 01 Edu.

To get a return on investment, FE Week understands 01 Founders will take a cut from the programme’s graduates’ salaries, or a stake in any companies they set up – as it has done with a similar project called ‘42’ in France and America.

A controversial aspect of the intensive two-year programme is that it starts with a one-month selection process, based on a “swimming pool” model where applicants “sink or swim”.

Where this has been used for similar programmes overseas, 1,000 applicants have been slashed down to a cohort of 250. Hopefuls have to work every day, including at weekends, to complete, file and evaluate tasks.

CCCG’s chief executive Roy O’Shaughnessy told FE Week he “really didn’t like” the model, and the approach for CCCG’s programme has been described as “a swimming pool with armbands”.

Applicants will be able to access pastoral services and if they do not make it, candidates will be signposted to similar courses.

CCCG’s project will also involve around 1,000 applicants, who will be whittled down to 250. The successful learners will then work independently or in groups to complete 50 projects over two years, while studying multiple programming languages.

A target has been set of making half of course participants women, 30 per cent ethnic minorities, and half from underrepresented backgrounds in tech, such as the long-term unemployed.

O’Shaughnessy hopes it will attract a “whole group of individuals who wouldn’t necessarily look at an FE college specific before this”. He also hopes they will “get an ‘in’ to every major employer in London that will be participating in this going forward”.

Union call tech venture’s teacherless model ‘disgusting’

But union officials have been enraged to learn the course does not use teachers, as CCCG is looking to make 30 staff members redundant.

The job cuts will be made on courses where “fewer students are enrolling, and class sizes have become untenable”, according to a college spokesperson.

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady branded it “frankly disgusting CCCG wants to throw staff on the scrap heap whilst wasting the equivalent of millions of pounds on a project that advertises itself as offering ‘teacherless’ training”.

Staff, she added, are voting on taking industrial action.

The college’s spokesperson said they had been “open” with the UCU about proposals to reduce full-time equivalent staff and will look to make voluntary rather than compulsory redundancies.

Greatest risk to college is to its reputation

Asked what its return from the tech venture would be, CCCG said it will see returns on an equity stake in 01 Founders, a company that was incorporated in January.

The CCCG spokesperson refused to disclose how much the stake was worth.

Although it is kitting out and lending its whole building to the programme, the group intends to eventually start charging rent on the premises.

The 42 project started in 2013 in France before expanding to America, and was founded by computer engineer Nicolas Sadirac. 01 Founders was co-founded by Sadirac and entrepreneur Brent Hoberman.

Former culture minister Ed Vaizey and former schools minister Jim Knight are listed as advisers to 01 Founders.

While applicants are guaranteed a job at the end of the course, the syllabus reveals this could be with the 01 Founders Talent Agency, where the company may profit from hiring out graduates to outside companies.

CCCG has only recently exited early intervention with the Education and Skills Funding Agency. That came after a surprise £10 million deficit in 2018/19, following unplanned, multi-million-pound losses in previous years. Another £10 million deficit was recorded in 2019/20.

Chair Alastair Da Costa said the greatest risk from the coding school was not financial, but reputational: “In terms of how the public will perceive it, how the swimming-pool model would be perceived, that it’s too different for FE, and that we’re entering into a relationship with two international organisations.”

01 Founders did not respond to requests for comment at the time of going to press.